


Ivy League

by Belle_Evans



Category: Takers (2010)
Genre: Angst, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Male Character of Color, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 11:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6193828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle_Evans/pseuds/Belle_Evans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He did love Lilli, but A.J....it was probably always going to end like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ivy League

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 2011 Small Fandom Fest for my own prompt - the end. Moving LJ stuff over.

They have run out of time. No time left at all. No time to take care of A.J. properly. To take A.J. with them where he belongs. Just this. This quick moment to hold his hand, to remind him, his soul that he wasn’t alone. That he had family. That he was loved. Not like when Jake met him.

&&&

The renewed interest in downtown L.A. loft living meant the development of upscale restaurants, new clubs. New places for Jake Attica to make contacts. His partner in crime, Gordon Cozier, spent most of his time on the Westside, but Jake preferred downtown. It excited him to see the resurgence. He was a silent partner in the development of loft spaces on Flower and retail spaces near the Staples Center on Figueroa. The silent partnerships were necessary, but he'd started feeling the itch for something more public, more definably his. To that end he'd been scoping out clubs to get a bead on the competition. Jake wanted his club to be successful, but at the end of the day that wasn't necessarily a priority. He could afford to take the time to make it exactly what he wanted.

At the Blue Note, a tiny dive of a nightspot near Union Station, Jake saw A.J. for the first time, playing the somewhat battered piano in semi-dark corner of the main room. The kid was good. Jake dropped a twenty into the mostly empty tip jar on top of the piano. That gesture was met with a sweet, sleepy smile and a "Thanks, brother." 

Jake hadn't intended to stay, but the kid really was talented. Live music was on the list of things Jake was considering, but he'd been thinking combo. A solo piano might be nice.

"So you're my patron now?" Jake had been jotting notes in a little black notebook he carried with him. He hadn't realized the music had switched over from live to pre-recorded. He found himself staring at his own twenty, before the kid tucked it into the inner pocket of his burgundy smoking jacket. 

Jake took in the jacket, it was just a little worn on the lapels, the suspenders, the fedora. The clothes were clearly thrift store, but Jake couldn't get a read immediately on whether or not that was fashion or necessity. Regardless, the kid knew how to put himself together. 

"You're good. I was just showing my appreciation."

"What color are your eyes?" The question hadn't caught Jake off guard, people asked all the time. When he was younger people kept telling him they would eventually switch to brown, they hadn't. The question was business as usual, the tone of the voice asking wasn't. 

"Blue," he answered and waited. Adjusting his assessment of the kid as he did. 

"Blue," the kid said, rolling it on his tongue. "That makes two of us," he said leaning closer to Jake, "you wanna see my tattoo?"

Jake couldn't help but laugh. There were tattoos on the kid's wrists, and he could see the tip of one peaking out of his collar. He was fairly certain those weren't the one's the other guy had in mind. 

"I'm thinking about opening a nightclub. I might need a piano player." Jake hadn't said that out loud to anyone. Not even Jesse. 

After that night, the kid latched onto Jake, dogged him downtown, on the Strip, and all points in between offering him a variety of goods and services. The goods were rarely legal and _Hey Blue, you wanna see my new tattoo_ was the invitation used to couch the offer of services. 'Blue', the running joke because of the shared eye color. The only name Jake had known him by then. It always made him smile. 

It took the kid, who Jake discovered was twenty-one when they met, almost two years to wear Jake down. Against his better judgment, Jake invited him home for a decent meal. The kid was built like a pipe cleaner. There was an ulterior motive in the invitation. The thing that Jake had learned watching him in the two years before he extended the invitation was that 'Blue' was resourceful, whipsmart. Jake could make a casual reference to any player on the scene and A.J. could give him a full rundown of their associations, who they owed, who owed them, personal quirks. Once when Jake mentioned a building he thought might work for the club, the kid explained in great detail why it would be better to demo the whole thing and start from scratch. He also detailed the best way to do the demo. On closer inspection of the site, Jake saw that he was right. Those were useful talents, talents that could get him a different kind of life, if that's what he wanted. 

His blue-eyed friend wasn't a completely unknown commodity. The word around was that he'd run away from home at sixteen. No one was exactly sure from where. Could have been the East Coast, could have been Orange County. The lankiness had made him appear younger than his age when they met. The sweetness in his face selling the rest. What was charming, disarming at sixteen could be decidedly less so at twenty-three. 

The decent meal was essentially anything the kid wanted from the the stack of takeout menus in Jake's kitchen drawer. They ate until their stomachs felt full to bursting. Later they sprawled side by side on the couch, listening to Miles Davis on the state of the art turntable. Jake liked it old school, a floor to ceiling cabinet of vinyl attested to that. 

"The headphones are there." Jake pointed them out as he levered himself off the couch. A.J. immediately picked them up. "There are blankets and towels in the hall closet if you need them." The invitation to stay on the couch was explicit or so Jake figured. He woke up the next morning to find his friend curled up in the fetal position, on top of the comforter, beside him. 

"Hey, Blue," he said as he shook out his limbs and stared at Jake with sleepy eyes. He'd stripped down to a white undershirt and white boxers. The ink that Jake had been invited to see over the last couple of years, disappeared underneath the fabric of the boxers in colored swirls and intricate art covering most of his left thigh. 

"I did a favor for a guy, when I first got here. He paid me in ink." 

He hitched up the edge of his boxers so that Jake could get a better look. "You should let me do you a favor every once in a while Jake."

There was no embarrassment or shyness. Any modesty would have died a quick death long ago on the street. Not so for Jake who'd always had a roof over his head, who usually slept in the nude.

Gathering the sheet, he edged to the opposite side of the bed. "You know there's no price. I don't expect anything from you. You're my friend. I invited you for dinner. That's it."

"It's been a long time since I slept with someone I liked." 

"I'm not, we're not -"

"Okay, semantics. Slept beside. I just wanted -." 

For the first time since Jake had known him, the kid looked lost. Jake understood lost boys, at least he and his brother, Jesse, had each other. He wouldn't let himself dwell on how many times his houseguest might have traded himself for a warm place to sleep.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, don't make a big deal or I might change my mind."

"Sure. Thanks." Jake stayed where he was, on the edge of the bed. 'Blue' folded his arms behind his head, focused on the ceiling. Jake waited for the awkwardness to set in, but with the initial surprise dissipated it didn't feel any different than sitting next to him on the couch or sitting across from him in a booth. 

It was that easy with the two of them. After that, the kid stayed over so many nights, until Jake cleared out space in his spare bedroom for him to call his own. They still slept side by side. Sometimes, he woke up with A.J.'s body plastered up against his. Jake didn't overthink it, or think about it too deeply. He just let it be.

 

Two years later, A.J. was a full partner in crime. When Jake introduced him formally to Gordon, and his other associate Ghost, he'd smiled and told them all to call him A.J., which took Jake by complete surprise. He'd only ever mentioned him to Gordon as 'this guy I know', so the sudden change didn't faze anyone but him. Gordon simply looked him up and down then said,"yeah we could use a bit of the Ivy League." 

After that. A.J. seemed to take great delight in telling people different things when they asked him what his initials stood for. When Jake asked, he only smiled as he did the first time Jake met him without answering. If the kid, A.J., wanted to be someone new who was Jake to begrudge him that. 

“My birthday's in a couple of days. I think I’m gonna get a new tattoo.” They were in his living room going over blueprints for a building Jake intended to buy.

“You're gonna run out of skin one of these days.”

“Yeah, but today's not that day. It's a small one."

"What's it gonna be this time?"

"A.J.”

"You're gonna tattoo your initials on your body? Afraid you'll forget who you are?"

"Nah, I know who I am."

“You ever going to say what they stand for?”

A.J. ducked his head. “You know how it is man, depends on the day.” For his twenty-fifth birthday he'd gotten the letters tattooed high and small on his inner thigh. 

The rest of the crew gave him a hard time about tattooing his own initials on his body. Jake was the only one he showed the actual tattoo, and still it took a little while for the penny to drop. 

 

Ghost had been in lockup for a year. They were all a little shaken, and Jake had been spending time with Ghost's girlfriend, Lilli. He, Jesse and A.J. were at his place when his cell rang. It was Lilli. He'd immediately started grabbing up his jacket, began sliding into his loafers.

Jesse took one look at him, started laughing, "Man you might as well let her tattoo _Property of Lilli_ across your forehead, the way you go running whenever she calls."

It stopped him right as he put his hands on his car keys. It happened so quickly from one moment to the next. Like all the time Jake hadn’t known morphed into a time that it couldn’t ever have been possible for him not to know. Couldn’t believe he hadn’t gotten it the very moment A.J. said it. He glanced at A.J. who had shifted his concentration to reading the liner notes on the back of a Sarah Vaughn album. 

“I could be all yours,” A.J. had said to him once when they were still in the process of becoming friends. As Jake was learning to take the come ons as mostly reflex from A.J.

“Hey, Blue can you come with me down to the car I've got a schematic I want you to take a look at.” 

A.J.'s shoulders stiffened at the old nickname. Jesse just looked confused. As soon as the elevator doors closed, Jake rounded on the other man. He wasn't angry exactly, just stunned. At his own blindness, at A.J.'s audacity. 

 

“I can’t keep calling you A.J.”

“Why not brother?”

“Come on, A.J, I can’t -”

“What? Tell the truth. Say the truth. I was stuck. I wasn't gonna get to that next level on my own. I'm smart. I know that. But I don't have the, I never had the stability. You did that for me, made it safe for me. You saved my life Jake. So..."

The elevator dinged open.

Pressing himself into the corner of the elevator, A.J. shrugged, smiled the smile that made people think he was a choir boy. With a tip of his hat, he pushed the button to go back up to Jake's floor. For several minutes, Jake just stood in front of the closed doors trying to let it sink in. 

When he decided to propose to Lilli and make the 'property of' thing official, A.J. was the first person he told. The first person to see the ring. He'd needed the seal of approval.

“That’s great man.”

“A.J...."

“I know you love me man. I know it’s different.” As he accepted A.J.’s congratulatory hug, he knew it wasn’t so different. He did love A.J. He would give his life for him, the same as he would for Lilli. The same as he would for his brother. A.J. was his family, affirmed in A.J.'s skin.

&&&

Twenty minutes ago Jake's life was perfect. Now, there are police sirens, and blue eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. He can’t leave what's his, not like this. God, not like this.

"We gotta go." Gordon says with soft urgency. Time is up. With a last squeeze of A.J.'s hand, Jake grabs the shotgun. Steps over A.J.'s legs and goes. 

 

Fin


End file.
